Gino and Ornella as Leonard and Marianne

«Senza fine», sang Ornella Vanoni in 1961, interpreting the words composed for her by Gino Paoli. There are love stories like this: endless. They don’t really end. AND sometimes even time seems to follow a poetic plot. You think so when observing two couples who are distant in geography but surprisingly close in destiny: on the one hand Gino Paoli and Ornella Vanonion the other Leonard Cohen and Marianne Ihlen.

It was July 28, 2016 when Marianne Ihlen, the muse to whom Leonard Cohen dedicated his “So Long, Marianne“. The two met on the Greek island of Hydra in 1960: Marianne was engaged to the Norwegian writer Axel Jensen and Cohen was engaged to the Swedish singer Lena Måndotter. Love was born between Marianne and Leonard Cohen and the same happened between Jensen and Måndotter. Jensen, however, decided to leave Marianne Ihlen and return to Norway: Cohen invited the woman and the son born from the relationship between her and the writer to live in Montreal The relationship between the singer-songwriter and Marianne continued for a few years and the two lived between New York, Montreal and Hydra itself, until they broke up. Marianne was 81 years old when she passed away, in Diakonhjemmet, near Oslo, Norway. A few weeks before her death, a friend wanted to inform Leonard Cohen that Marianne was very ill. The Canadian singer-songwriter then wrote her one letter which was read to the woman when she was still conscious: «Know that I am just behind you holding out your hand and I think it can reach mine and know that I have always loved you for your beauty and your wisdom.but there is no need to say anything else, because you already know everything. Now, I just want to wish you a good trip. Goodbye old friend, infinite love: see you along the way.” Leonard Cohen would pass away on November 7 of that same year, 102 days later the death of his muse.

Instead they are 123according to an (almost) suggestive coincidence, the days that separated the passing of Gino Paoli from that of his musehis “Marianne”, Ornella Vanoni. It was last November 24th when the great diva of Italian song passed away in Milan. After Vanoni’s death, Gino Paoli, who as is known was linked to his muse by an intense (and turbulent) love story, hid himself in a long and impenetrable silence (on the day of his disappearance a black and white photo of the two of them appeared on his social channels, accompanied by a heart). Who knows if in recent months Paoli hasn’t felt like the protagonist of “So long, Marianne”: «Then why do I feel alone?», «Then why do I feel alone?»sang Cohen in the verses of his farewell song to his muse. The silence was broken only today, one hundred and twenty-three days later, by the news of the singer-songwriter’s passing: «Tonight Gino left us in peace and surrounded by the affection of his loved ones», declares the Paoli family in a note in which they ask for maximum confidentiality.

Two different stories, but united by an invisible thread: that of an artistic and sentimental bond capable of spanning time. We like to imagine Gino just like Leonard, in that letter delivered to Marianne shortly before the muse’s disappearance: just behind Ornella, who holds out her hand to him. In an “endless” moment.